The Injustice of Preference

Asked if I’d be participating in my church’s summer Bible study about excess, I always smiled and answered, “No.” Ignorance is bliss, and if I’m totally honest, I had no desire to be convicted in most of the areas the study covers. Then one Sunday I picked up the book for a closer look, and I knew: I couldn’t cling to ignorance as a way to avoid conviction.

I dreaded the ugly truths God would expose, and at the same time, I longed for the freedom, peace, and joy that come after conviction and repentance.

So I dove in, and within the first few pages, I was mad. Offended. Isn’t that what the Word sometimes does? Offends, because we’d rather not admit the darkness in our own hearts. The self-centeredness. The greed.

But something pushed me forward.

We looked at James 2:1-13. For days several verses pierced my soul and spirit and discerned the thoughts and intents of my heart (Hebrews 4:12). They kept circulating through my mind, winding their way to my heart: Conviction. Tweet #HolyHis

It’s about giving preference to what the world esteems rather than loving everyone with mercy regardless of their wealth or position, especially the less fortunate, the way Jesus’ unconditionally loves and shows us mercy.

The passage begins, “My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons” (verse 1, KJV). The Greek root for respect of persons is prosōpolēmpsia, which means partiality or “the fault of one who when called on to give judgment has respect of the outward circumstances of man and not to their intrinsic merits, and so prefers, as the more worthy, one who is rich, high born, or powerful, to another who does not have these qualities” (www.blueletterbible.org).

Faith in Christ and prejudice cannot co-exist. Jesus alone is to be revered among others. We cannot place our faith in Jesus and then value or judge others based on their status in society, high or low, or any other outward circumstance. Conversely, we cannot place our faith in Jesus and then prize beauty, prominence, and possessions in order to be admired.

But don’t we?

Aren’t we all to a certain degree guilty of prosōpolēmpsia ? Don’t we make decisions about a person’s insides based on their outsides? In a split second, we judge their success in life, their character, and maybe even how well they obey God by what they do or have. We decide whether they’re good parents or bad by how their kids look and act. We determine whether or not we think they’re truly saved. And we pursue them accordingly.

“Have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?” (verse 4).

We not only judge others with evil thoughts, forming opinions of worth based on what we see on their outsides, but don’t we also judge what we put our time and resources toward with evil thoughts in order to draw the partiality of others based on what’s on what others can see of us?

Preferring the things that improve our outward circumstances over the things that improve our inward merit or others’ circumstances? Shopping rather than sacrificing for others. Wearing the right things rather than clothing the poor. Eating at nice restaurants rather than feeding the needy. Enjoying hobbies rather than serving. Working to get ahead rather than working with others so they can get ahead. Isn’t that partiality with our time and resources?

What we cherish we will pursue with priority.

Ouch!

“If you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (verse 9).

To judge someone’s outsides without respect for their insides is sin. To judge the condition of their hearts based on the appropriateness of their dress, or piercings, or tattoos, or where they hang out, or what they do for a living, or who their friends are, or the things that ensnarl them, or how their kids act and dress is sin.

“Speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty” (verse 12). The law of love. Love thy neighbor as thyself.

We can tell a tree by its fruit, and we can call sin what it is, we just don’t get to judge the sinner. Quite the opposite, we are to love them as Christ loved us. Sacrificially and unconditionally. Even if we don’t agree with them, or how they act, or how they dress, or how they parent.

We can still shop, have and wear nice things, eat out, vacation, work hard, and enjoy hobbies, but not to the injustice of others. Not for prosōpolēmpsia.

My partiality is as equal a transgression as what I judge to be someone else's inexcusable offense (verses 10-11).

Nowhere does the law of liberty say judge thy neighbor.

“For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (verse 13).

To show mercy is always better than judgment.

Lord, I am guilty of judging with evil thoughts. Please forgive me.

Are you guilty too? Pray with me:

Lord, search us and know our hearts, try us and know our anxieties; see if there is any wicked way in us and lead us in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24) as we become more wholly Yours today.

Shauna Wallace

Bloodsucking Sin

Summer just isn’t summer without a trip to my dad’s house in Tennessee. Nestled in the hills near beautiful Pickwick Lake, my sister and I meet there with our husbands and kids for a week of family fun. Much of the action centers around the nearby lake, where we sun, swim, and boat. This year, mechanical malfunctions beached us all but one day, so the cousins spent hours swimming in the lake, and this mom spent hours lounging in the sand reading.

“Mom, what’s that on your butt?” one daughter inquired as she joined me to tan on land. A few swipes of her towel yielded no answers, so we shrugged it off and leisurely laid on our tummies. Several hours later, we packed up chairs, cooler, snack bags, and towels and headed home for the day.

That evening in the shower, soaping my legs to shave, I felt something on my backside. “Hmmm,” I thought. “Something from the beach must be stuck to my skin.” I tried to pick it off with my finger nail. It didn’t budge. “That’s odd,” I mused. I tried pulling at it. All that did was stretch my skin with it.

And then it dawned on me, mostly because we had just talking about it that morning at breakfast. The topic freaked me out then, and now I was living my worst nightmare.

I HAD A TICK EMBEDDED ON THE BACK OF MY LEG UNDER MY RIGHT BUTT CHEECK!

Ticknaphobia set in. Near tears at the thought that an insect was burrowed in my skin sucking my blood, I reached a place of near panic. I can handle most things – blood, lizards, frogs, even snakes. But creepy, crawly, insects? NO! Just talking about them gives me the heebie jeebies, and now there was one inside my skin, and I was alone at the house where us parents were staying for the week.

Determined to finish my shower, I prayed to the God of all creation, including ticks, to keep me from having a complete melt down and to send help! Breathing deep, I strategized. I still had another leg to shave.

Breathe, Shauna. Remember to breathe.

Finally done, I stepped out and immediately issued an SOS.

“Pamela, I have a TICK in my BUTT CHEECK and I AM FREAKING OUT! You have got to help me. Please come now, and come alone, AND GET THIS THING OUT OF ME!”

My sister’s response? Hysterical laughter! But she headed right over from my dad’s house, located the bloodsucking monster, pinched it out with her finger nails, and flushed it down the toilet and out of my life forever.

I couldn’t even look the little monster in the face. I didn’t want the image haunting me at night.

It took several hours for me to recover from the idea of what happened. In those hours, it occurred to me how much our sin is like a tick.

Buried deep.

Bloodsucking.

Disease carrying.

Difficult to eradicate.

The longer it’s there, the more damage it causes.

The harder it is to get rid of.

And if you don’t get the head, you’re going to have recurring problems.

It’s serious, just like sin. Do I freak out at sin in my life like I freaked out about that tick? Am I panicked to get rid of it immediately?

Jesus explains how seriously we should take sin in Matthew 5:29-30: "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.”

My sister rescued me from the tick.

Jesus rescues us from our sin.

Do I run to the Lord and cry out for His help to get it all out of my life?

Or do I ignore it, giving it the opportunity to become further embedded and cause serious problems in my life and relationships?

If you find a tick, tweeze it, drown it out with alcohol, burn it. Whatever you do, get rid of it! All of it!

If you find sin in your life, do the same thing! Do whatever it takes to get rid of it. All of it!

Perhaps it’s time for a full body search. Ticks like to hide in the strangest of places, hidden where they can’t be easily detected.

So does sin.

Father, send Your Holy Spirit to search out our entire body for sin. Expose it, even the deepest most embedded sin, and root it out at the head. Leave nothing behind as we become more wholly Yours today.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His 

Crumpled Grave Clothes Litter My Heart

Resurrection Sunday. It is early. I am still. Lord, what do I say? We celebrate Easter with bunnies, baskets, hidden eggs, and squeals of delight, while an empty tomb beckons. One day a dead body. The next, only burial clothes. One day a fortified cell. Defeat. The next, a symbol of hope. One day the finality of man’s worst punishment. The next, the finality of God’s eternal deliverance.

What is here for me at the mouth of the empty tomb? The resurrected life. Alive in Christ, having died in Him. God shows me: Selfishness cannot live in the face of sacrifice. The dying to self of the crucified life is absolutely necessary for the glory of a resurrected life.

What may appear to be a checklist of good works (see “Crucified Like Him”) is but the natural result of a crucified self. But there is nothing natural about it. Not when God sums up the condition of man’s heart as “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Job 17:9). We can honestly say we were born that way. For that, Jesus died. Brutally. Innocently. Without sin. For what we deserve. To pay the eternal penalty we owe for our sin. The penalty owed by every one of us. No exceptions.

Jesus’ shed blood is the only verdict that will stand in the heavenly court of law when we stand before a holy God. To put our faith in Jesus as the only source of our salvation, to be saved by grace through faith and nothing else, is to die to self and be raised in new life in Christ. Just like He was. Resurrected from death to eternal life. Yes, eternal life in heaven when we are saved. Guaranteed. Because of one man’s sacrifice. The Son of God.

How do we not see? How do we not fall on our faces in joy and sorrow? How do we not rejoice? How do we not receive the free gift He offers? How do we not respond with the one simple requirement: faith. In Him, and Him alone. How do we not love Him because of His great love for us?

The empty tomb awaits. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Where once our tomb was a place of hopelessness, uncertainty, death, and bondage, in Christ, it is now empty of those things and filled with the Spirit of the living God.

Do you see it? When we place our faith in the resurrected Christ, all things are made new. Where there was once sin and destruction, there is now an empty tomb. A place of hope. We are raised to new life in Christ.

Where alcoholism once sealed us in our tomb, it is now empty. Where sexual immorality once sealed us in our tomb, it is now empty. Only grave clothes. Our old self is no longer there. Where anger and strife once sealed us in our tomb, it is now empty. Where ambition once sealed us in our tomb, it is now empty. Jealousy, envy, and discontentment? Only grave clothes. Eating disorder? Only grave clothes. Hurt, brokenness, unforgiveness, sexual abuse, verbal abuse, physical abuse, broken marriage, broken home, drugs, stealing, murder, homosexuality, hatred, judgment, gossip, unkindness, selfishness, self-seeking, pornography, impure thoughts, vulgar language, coarse jesting? Yes, grave clothes!

In the emptiness of the tomb we find the sobering uselessness of all our pursuits for a substitute. The uselessness of the counterfeits Satan offers to distract us from true salvation. True deliverance. True joy. True security. We find that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). And as He continues in that verse, “No man comes to the Father but through me.”

Will you come to Jesus? To find forgiveness, peace and hope. To find the crumpled up burial clothes of a life once eternally condemned. To find an empty tomb because you’ve been raised up in Christ to a new life where all things are made new.

Are there sins you need to confess? Bondage from which you need to be set free? When you go to the empty tomb, do you find yourself wearing your burial clothes again? Jesus died for it all. He secured victory, once and for all. The sins we’ve committed, are committing, and will commit. It is all on Him. It is only on us to come. And to return.

Romans 8:1 assures us, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” We must take responsibility, but condemnation is not ours. Not in Christ.

Stand at the mouth of Jesus’ empty tomb and rejoice. Death is defeated. Eternal life a guarantee for those who put their trust in Jesus.

Lord, may we find grave clothes crumpled in the tombs of our hearts every day as we become more wholly Yours.

Happy Easter!

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

At the Mercy of the Mirror

“You really need to write about this, Shauna,” a dear friend and fellow blogging mother gently insisted as we chatted amidst the chaos of a dozen daughters learning to make strawberry jam. The topic of our conversation? How God delivered me from my battle with bulimia. It was the answer to my prayer for direction about what to blog next. “People really need to hear your story,” she stressed.

So here it is, the story of how the Lord faithfully freed me from the deepest, most desperate stronghold of idolatry in my life. It has been a long road, traveled over twenty-five years. In many ways, His work in me was gradual, like growth. Most days, I could see no measurable change. Other times, it seemed as if I grew a foot in a day. Those marked defining moments when God confronted me with truth that required doing something radically different, and all of a sudden, I was taller. Freer.

Our experiences and habitual sins may be unique, but God’s truth, His answer for hurting humans, is universal. In that respect, what I have to share isn’t only for those who struggle with an eating disorder or addiction or know someone who does. It’s for us all.

In case you aren’t familiar with this part of my story, I’ll start with a little history.

Food became a comfort early in life. It was always there for me to fill a void. It’s how my “foster” grandparents, whose home became a childhood haven, expressed love and made everything better. It is what my mother micro-controlled in her life and ours. I can’t remember a time when I did not love food!

Consequently, in my pre-teen years, I was pudgy and awkward and saw myself as inadequate. My nickname in seventh grade was “happy, happy, hippo.” I desperately wanted to be one of the “in crowd,” but never was. Decisions I made as a freshman in high school piled shame onto my feelings of worthlessness. By the time I was a sophomore and had persuaded my parents to let me switch from private Christian school to public, I was convinced that the key to popularity, which I equated with love and acceptance, was being thin and beautiful.

Continuing in foolish behaviors, my skin increasingly felt like a prison. I ate to make myself feel better, but the minute a binge ended, the self-hatred and shame returned even stronger. That’s when my disorder manifested. I HAD to get rid of everything I consumed. I compulsively exercised. I binged and purged and lost weight. I made the drill team at my new school, and people noticed me, most especially the guys. Food was my drug. I had to have it, but when intense panic would grip me at the thought of gaining an ounce, I had to get rid of it any way I could. To gain weight was to lose my lovability.

My size and the perceived love and acceptance of others became my god. They defined me and my place in the world.

When I moved to Houston with my parents after graduating from high school, I thought it was my saving grace. A fresh start. I could be a new person. But everywhere I went, everything I did, there I was. When I left home to attend a university in Texas, my addiction followed me. I saw myself as worthless. The more my life spiraled out of control, the more dire my addiction and desperation became.

The End of Sin Is Death

“For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23).

By my third year in college, the compulsivity of my binging and purging reached the point that I no longer could wait for certain opportune times to hide my problem. My roommates were suspicious. Rather than stop or risk confrontation, I switched from vomiting to laxatives. Handfuls at a time. Home alone one morning before class, I fainted while in the shower because I had taken so many laxatives the night before. When I awoke, I was tangled in the plastic liner with the water pouring down on me. I was terrified. I came face-to-face with what lay at the end of my path: death.

I knew in that first defining moment that I could not continue without irreversible consequences. It scared me enough to stop physically, but the mental, spiritual, and emotional bondage remained. I still micromanaged everything I ate, exercised compulsively, and defined myself and my world according to how I felt in my body at any given time. My well-being and relationships were still at the mercy of the mirror.

But God is faithful. He continued to pursue me. He made me whole, as Jesus did for many (and still does), saying, “Your faith has made you well.” Whole. In the Greek, it is “to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction; to save a suffering one; to preserve one who is in danger of destruction” (Strong’s G4982, www.blueletterbible.org).

That’s what He did for me. It wasn’t enough that He would save me from physical destruction; He preserved me in order to save me from spiritual and emotional destruction, too.

Join me for more of His rescue Thursday?

Lord, thank You for the many ways you preserve us to save us from destruction as we become more wholly Yours.

Part 2

Part 3

Shauna Wallace

Holy His